


Bridge the Gap

by SpiderSensei



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Blood, Gore, Sacrifices, i wrote this in like twenty minutes i'm just putting it here for storage, suicidal ceremony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 11:33:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7616452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpiderSensei/pseuds/SpiderSensei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How far can you go to save the ones you love from death? The real death is in being lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bridge the Gap

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own this entire thing, but the motivation behind it was Invader Zim, which I do not own.

Copper. That’s the smell. He can tell the moment he gains a shred of sentience, his consciousness returning gradually, regretfully. The world around him smells of copper.

It reeks of copper. The stench clogs his nostrils and makes him snort and cough hoarsely, wetly, lumps of saliva rising and rocketing out of his open mouth. He touches his throat with a hand; his fingers pull away with a sticky resistance. Inertia blows on the warm liquid, drying it over his pale skin. He shudders.

A crackle behind his head turns into a crash, and pieces of wood splinter everywhere, stinging his skin and catching on his clothes. He pries his eyelids apart with immense effort, blinking rapidly at the flickering light in his bedroom. The fire had died down somewhat, but the aftermath still lingers over his carpet and window drapes.

Struggling to turn his head, he feels a crack in his spine, comfortable but unnervingly jarring. He pushes himself up onto his elbow, feeling the sweat glue his clothes to his skin and the little hairs around his hairline to his face. He lets out a breathy groan, a tender sound of registering pain, as he feels a distant throbbing throughout his being, agonizing in a beautifully natural way. He feels as though the pain is the only thing in the world that he could trust to always be there.

What is this pain?

He lifts his body a little more, turning his head to see his desk covered in soot and ash. Something had been burning. What was it? What was going on again? He had been doing something in his bedroom when…everything caught on fire…

Sirens in the distance catch his attention. He sighs heavily as he digs up the will to sit himself up, pushing away from the floor with all the energy he can muster as his hand finds something wet and warm in the rug. He manages to sit with his legs to the side, one hand propping himself up as the other touches his neck once more. So much…blood…

Was it his own? Was it someone else’s? Was there someone else here?

He looks around the stormy bedroom with a dry, blurry gaze, but finds no one. The soot covering his desk ends in an arc just under his toppled desk chair, as if implanted in a perfect circle from above.

He notices the runes in the carpet. With little effort, he recognizes the writing. His eyes widen, tearing up at the exposure to filthy, smoky air.

“ _Haa-_ ” he begins, wheezing out a sound that could only be described as a pathetic call for help. He swallows, his cracked tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, trying to call out again, but no sound would come forth. He touches his throat again, and finds a shallow gash across his tracheal mound. No, it isn’t shallow. He feels the split skin, barely poking his fingers into the slit when he realizes he’s breathing on his own fingers from inside his throat.

He lurches, pressing both hands to his stomach as he retches, again, and again, and again, and again…

But nothing comes up. And he doesn’t pass out. He realizes with a shock that there’s blood staining the carpet around the blackened section of his bedroom floor, peeking out from under the dark circle. Underneath the soot, there is more blood. More blood leading to where he sits. More blood soaking his shirt. More blood. And more. And more.

He finds his glasses on the floor, perfectly intact and freckled with dry spots of rouge.

He releases a shuddering whimper, hot tears spilling over and streaking his cheeks with a striking warmth that overpowers the low heat of the fire, igniting his nerves and shaking him to his core with a violent trembling. He holds his breath, covering his neck with a hand as he struggles to force his shaking legs to straighten out beneath him. He reaches for the desk to support himself when he hears a deep laughter emanating from the very walls.

_“Look at you… You asked for this, did you not?”_

He freezes, not daring to search the room with his eyes.

_“When you spilled blood for me, I gave you your wish in exchange. I gave you power.”_

He winces, throwing his hand over the surface of the desk and feeling a handle. He curls his fingers around the familiar object, lifting it over his head to glare at the blotched, stained surface in which he could barely make out his own reflection.

_“I gave you…immortality.”_

His lips stretch over his teeth, baring them at the blood-caked knife.

_What did you do to me!?_

The dark chuckle in response to his silent question only serves to make him realize that his heart isn’t pounding.

_“I did to you what you asked. You wanted the power to live with the living and the dead. I only granted you that wish.”_

He tries to scream. He can only weep silently, mouth wide open, as he sinks to the ground once more, entirely oblivious to his surroundings. The fire continues to flicker around him, casting ever-living shadows and making them dance over his body.

_“You are now with the living…and the dead.”_


End file.
